“Oh beautiful…”
Dateline: Southern Open #3, Dandridge, Tenn.
“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”
~Elmer Davis
I pray we never awake, from the American Dream.
They come for us, because we dream not of oppression, not of control, not of Kings and Queens.
But of freedom.
Evil only works when all but a few are in chains.
We have bullets and bombs, tanks and subs, but what is feared the most of us, is our freedom of thought.
They come not really to control our land, they come to control our mind, it is not our soil they want but our soul. And even in death they will not be able to pry that out of my cold dead body.
I know who gave it to me and only he gets it back.
Come for us if you must, but know this, when you come for one, you will face us all.
E pluribus unum.
“…for heroes proved…”
I stood in the Southern Open #3 registration line on Wednesday and handed out hats and thank yous. It is one of my favorite things to do.
To meet you.
To listen to you.
To answer any questions you may have, I’m open at the open.
Stand with me in this line, a line of old and young, of fat and skinny, of black and white and other various shades, and of men and women.
America in 120-some bass boats.
Short hair, long hair, no hair, straight or kinky, bleached or truthful, combed or not.
Blue collar, white collar, tank top, sleeveless, T-shirts blank, T-shirts with proclamations. I glance at them all, read them all, smile at some, wonder at others but one shirt, one shirt stopped me dead, mid handshake.
This one:
Prevention and Response to Suicide Bombing Incidents: New Mexico Tech
The man in the shirt saw me looking at the lettering, I handed him a hat and said, “Where you from,” and back came this, “Here, Dandridge Tennessee…” to which I replied, “…and you need that training here.”
In his hands he twirled the free B.A.S.S. Cap, shifted from one foot to another, and then quietly said, “Yes.”
Said in a whisper from the front of his mouth, said as if wishing it weren’t so, said eyes straight ahead locked on mine.
To which came from me: “Let’s talk.”
And we did, at the end of a long table, all alone.
“…in liberating strife…”
His name is Kenneth Lodwick, Detective Lieutenant Kenneth Lodwick, a co-angler who has been fishing competitively for the past five years.
He has been in law enforcement since he was 18 years old, “Started in 1987 in auxiliary with the P.D., in 1989 signed up with the Sherriff’s Department, 1993 through right now work in the city of Dandridge P.D.”
Kenneth is 47, married, one step-daughter, been in law enforcement more than half his life, “Narcotics, patrol, investigations, pretty much seen it all.”
An American hero who stands on the back of an Opens boat.
Trust me, as a punk growing up I was much more on the bad side of the cops than the good side, and if I’m honest about it, they never gave me back anything I didn’t give to them first.
I deserved what I got, they didn’t deserve what I gave.
I am respectful and thankful today, but I have to ask the question, and I did, “Why that on your shirt, isn’t it a bit of overkill here in Dandridge, Tennessee?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they are coming.”
“Who? Who’s coming?”
“The terrorists, in fact they are already here.”
“…who more…”
Google Terror Cells In America and get freaked.
I’m not sure I believe much of what Google says but I’m not naïve enough to think we don’t have any bad guys with bombs living amongst us. “It’s horrible that we have to do this, have schools like this to go to for training, but we do, it’s sad, but it is also safer that we face it.”
Now so you understand, Detective Lieutenant Kenneth Lodwick wasn’t trained in bomb disposal, he was trained in spotting and recognizing the BOMBER before the terrorist hits the switch.
Sort of Bomber Disposal.
“It was training in Response and Prevention to Suicide Bombings. Spot the terrorist before something bad happens and stop it before it does. Pretty in-depth training you know.”
“Do you think it will happen out here in rural America?”
“Yep, not IF but WHEN, we have a big dam here, dam’s all over America, blow them up and see what happens, go into a local bank and blow that up, a post pffice, a Walmart, a school, blow up the fabric of daily life that’s their goal.”
And then, “You’d be surprised how much a small bomb can blow up, don’t take much, don’t take much.”
I am flat out humbled by the man sitting next to me because I know what that training means, he knows what that training means.
Detective Lieutenant Kenneth Lodwick will run towards, not away from, the bomber.
“They say we are all soft targets you know.”
“…than self…”
I invite any of you to come stand with me at events like an Open or a B.A.S.S. Nation Tournament and shake the hands of the America that makes up the line.
Those who come to bomb may think we are “soft targets,” but when you shake the hands of us, you know we are anything but.
I know from greeting that line that terror is not making us weaker, it is making us stronger.
Let me tell you cowards who hide in the holes and attack the weak amongst us, the vulnerable amongst us, come out and try to stand up to men and women like Detective Lieutenant Kenneth Lodwick, come on out.
We here in America have with sticks, pitchforks and some guns turned back the most powerful military power on the planet at that time.
We here in America stood up to the Nazi’s and an Empire.
And we will stand up to you.
I only need to stand in line and give out free hats and shake the hands of those who pass to know the strength of America.
Detective Lieutenant Kenneth Lodwick, I thank you for being in that line, we at B.A.S.S. are honored and blessed you are there.
I look at the Opens as an opportunity for America to Open up to me, and I’m thankful for that.
Thankful for the dreams given to me by all those hands I shake in line.
A line that stretches all the way back to 1776.
A line of the free.
A line of the brave.
“…our country loved.”
America The Beautiful
Ray Charles
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“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
~Winston Churchill